MURRIETA: DISTRICT TAKES FIRST STEPS IN CONVERTING BUS FLEET
DISTRICT MOVES TO CONVERT BUS FLEET

The Murrieta Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees took action to pump some life into its aging fleet of diesel-powered buses recently when it approved a contract for an alternative-fuel dispensing station that will service the district’s first new buses since 2000, buses that will run on compressed natural gas.

District Transportation Director Jack Martin said the contract with Go Natural Gas Inc. of San Clemente calls for construction to begin on 31 refueling posts at the bus yard just south of the school district headquarters next month and be completed by Aug. 2.

“This pretty much solidifies the future of home-to-school transportation for us,” Martin said.

The board approved the energy services contract unanimously at its meeting May 9.

By the time the refueling station construction is complete, 10 new buses powered by compressed natural gas, or CNG, will have been delivered to the district. Nearly 90 percent of the cost of the new buses will be covered by grants from the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

According to an independent financial analysis prepared for the school district by the Dolinka Group, $1,615,000 of the $1,809,220 total cost of the buses — eight standard school buses and two buses equipped for special-needs students — related tools and equipment, and mechanic training will be defrayed by the grants.

The analysis also showed that grants and tax credits worth $714,000 will be applied to the $1,737,023 cost of the CNG facility.

Martin said the district began pursuing the grants in 2011.

Since 2001, the Air Quality Management District has required school bus fleet operators to replace aging vehicles with alternative-fueled vehicles. But it also has provided grants to pay for alternative-energy equipment and construction of the infrastructure to support it. The school district receives little in the way of state funding — just $86,000 a year for its $3.5 million transportation program, Martin said.

State support for the district, according to Martin, is so low because the state froze funding levels before the city’s population took off and the district experienced its most significant growth.

Approximately half of the district’s 31 regular buses and 20 special-needs buses were purchased in 1990, Martin said. When it came time to begin replacing the aging buses in the late 2000s, the economy tanked, he said, and repair costs for the fleet began to escalate.

But some of that bad timing and misfortune came in handy during the grant-writing process.

“I think that that story being told was one of the reasons why we were so successful in obtaining the grants,” Martin said. “It’s not a level playing field.”

One of the big pluses of going to the CNG buses is the low cost of that fuel compared with diesel gasoline. Diesel costs more than $3 a gallon and CNG is hovering at $2 a gallon, according to the Dolinka Group report.

But because the district will be processing its own CNG, and will be eligible for federal rebates, it will only cost about 50 cents a gallon to fill its buses, Martin said.